Goodseed Nursery Spring 2016 Newsletter

Volume 14

Issue 2

May 2016

Growing With Us

June 4th -Save the Date!

June 4th we’ll present our second annual GoodSeed Garden Expo at Hilltop Event Center (adjacent to our garden center) and you’re invited! Admission is free. Our featured speaker this year will be Jenny Nybro Peterson, cancer survivor and author of today’s hottest new gardening book, “The Cancer Survivor’s Garden Companion.” This is a very special book, full of wonderful ideas for using plants and gardening as therapy. Whether you are a cancer survivor or have one among your family and friends, Jenny and her book will inspire you and give gardening a whole new meaning in your life.

We started our Expo to provide a learning experience for our customers and showcase our favorite products. We’ll have an indoor “mini-trade show”, interesting speakers, product seminars, giveaway merchandise and garden center specials, plus delicious barbecue. We are inviting our key suppliers to display, educate and mingle with our customers.

So far we’re expecting Rusty Storrer of Monrovia Nurseries, Jessey Chaboudy of High Caliper Growing, Jim Voytus from Espoma Organics, and Greg Cooper from Pavestone. Adding to the roster are some local organizations like the Brown County Master gardeners (including weekly columnist Faye Mahaffey), Southern Ohio Forestland Association and Brown County Beekeepers. We’ll also have Estel Newberry’s Big “E” BBQ serving grilled specialties, and Buckeye Confections with their exceptional sweet treats.

We’ll have a full schedule of informative seminars, including sessions on hardscaping, tree care, woody plant grooming, new plant introductions, raised bed gardening and other hot topics. Our suppliers will be bringing plenty of free (Continued on Page 5)

Garden Designer Jenny Nybro Peterson

GoodSeed Nursery Hours:

It’s SPRING! NEW Rose Varieties!

Monday through Friday, rain or shine .................................. 7 AM to 7 PM Vegetable Plants Saturday, rain or shine ............................................................ 8 AM to 6 PM Sunday ........................................................................................... 11AM to 5PM Sweet Potato Starts

Maps, Directions & Schedules at www.goodseedfarm.com

Soils, Mulch & Stone

Growing With Us

Page 2

“Steve’s Soapbox”

Gardening is Giving

“The best time to plant a tree is ten years ago. The next best time is today.”

Here’s a family photo I’ve treasured for a long time; I’m not sure why it’s taken me until now to show it to you. I took it back in the mid-90’s when Stephen was still a toddler, and it has a strong message I’d like to share with you. When I took this picture we were living in Jacobstown, New Jersey (near Philadelphia), and we spent our weekends in our garden.

It was very important to us that Stephen spend his childhood in a beautiful place. Marjorie and I both grew up around plants and gardens, and gardeners. We believe that children, like baby birds in the nest, only know what they see around them, and so if they are surrounded by a feast for the senses they will value beauty when they grow up. My grandmother gave me the gift of occupying my childhood weekends working in her gardens, and it shaped me profoundly. This is something I have always wanted to pass along in her memory.

If you look at the photo closely you’ll see that Stephen is feeding his mom. Marjorie had prepared a picnic lunch for the two of them, and they took a break from planting flowers to eat. Like most toddlers, Stephen was used to being fed by his mother; nursing gave way to spoon-feeding as he grew. It was an expression of love. Now he wanted to return the favor, to serve his mother as she was always serving him.

Marjorie seized the moment and accepted his gift.

There are young people all around us, reflecting back what they see us do, following our example in all things. This is what makes me hopeful for the future. So many of you reading this are plant lovers. Most of you work very hard, and having beautiful surroundings is part of what you work for. With a little encouragement, your own children will follow in your footsteps. They may balk, whine and complain, but deep down they want to do positive work and will benefit from it in later life.

All the love, hard work and devotion you invest in your children and grandchildren will come back to you someday. Any time that gift is offered to you, I’m hoping you graciously accept. It can be awfully hard to do, at times, but it’s too important an opportunity to miss.

PULVERIZED TOPSOIL, COMPOST, SOIL BLENDS, MULCH, SAND & GRAVEL

..for pickup or “next business day” delivery: call 937-587-7021

Growing With Us

Page 3

Marjorie’s

Perennial Pick “Watercolors Home Run” Rose Weeks Roses has just introduced a new hardy shrub rose in its “Home Run” series, the multicolored Watercolors Home Run. The Home Run varieties are well known for their natural disease resistance, wellbehaved rounded habit and excellent flower production lasting from spring well into fall. The ever-changing yellow-gold blushing pink flowers of the Watercolors are more interesting than the original solid red Home Run, still one of our favorites. Constantly in color with its big clusters, Watercolors will really light up your landscape.

The Home Run series are “own-root” shrub roses, which means they are one plant from the flower buds to the tip of the deepest roots. Unlike grafted roses, own-root shrub roses will never sprout stems of a different variety from the roots. Disease resistance and a bushy, compact shape (3-4 feet tall and wide) make Watercolors a practical landscape shrub. Once it’s established it will be very hardy and drought tolerant in full sun.

Maintaining a shrub rose is simple. Each spring when it starts to leaf out, give it a “tough love” haircut. Remove any dead stems, and cut the remainder down to approximately one foot tall canes. Sprinkle a pound of Rose Tone around the base of the plant, Pine bark nuggets make the best mulch for roses, since the nuggets dry out quickly so they don’t harbor fungus diseases.

Within a few weeks your Watercolors shrub rose will sprout lots of new, healthy stems, which will soon be covered with buds. Once it starts blooming the Watercolors will put on a show until late November.

Two Scoops of Raisins?

Are you old enough to remember this pitch for Kellogg’s Raisin Bran? “There’s Two Scoops of Raisins in Every Box”, went the slogan. Which begged the question: How big a scoop? It’s a question we hear often, since we sell a lot of bulk mulch, soils, sand & gravel.

This season we’re using a larger tractor bucket, heaped higher with product, in our bulk lot. It takes less scoops to fill your pickup or trailer, which means we can load you faster. Our new, larger scoop holds approximately one cubic yard (27 cubic feet) versus 20 cubic feet per scoop last year and in previous years. That’s one reason why our bulk prices seem suddenly higher.

There’s another reason. Our suppliers have been inching their prices higher each season, while we’ve kept ours the same for many years. Crunching the numbers, we suddenly realized that we were selling bulk so cheap that it didn’t pay for the cost of the tractor, or the people who load you, or the rent for our bulk lot space. Essentially we were losing money on every scoop we sold.

We did a little checking, and we found out that most bulk mulch is sold by the yard. We installed a larger bucket on our tractor and adjusted our price so we’re competitive with other bulk retailers in southern Ohio. One thing we didn’t do is change our quality. We “skim the cream” on bulk products, just the way we do on everything else. We sincerely hope that works for you.

Growing With Us

Page 4

Mother’s Day Party!

ENJOY FOOD & FLOWERS ALL WEEKEND

It’s time again for the annual gathering of mothers and daughters, grandmothers and grandkids, mothers-in-law and mothers-to-be, at GoodSeed Nursery for our 18th annual Country Garden Mothers Day Party. After eighteen years it’s an annual ritual, with a FREE gift plant for every mom. This year it’s the exciting new “Watercolors Home Run” Rose Bush from Weeks Roses!

There’s one for you.

COME HUNGRY! Our breakfast menu includes sausage & egg sandwiches, hot ham & egg sandwiches, coffee and donuts. Estel Newberry’s “Big E BBQ”, will be serving melt-in-your-mouth ribeye sandwiches, half-pound steak burgers, pulled chicken sandwiches, and an affordable kids menu.

We’ll be giving away 1200 cute little rose bushes, one for every mother, no strings attached, and the Brown County Master Gardeners will be manning the plant giveaway table.

Plan to visit us during our We’ll have plenty of unadvertised specials on plants at their peak, perfect for Mom, and plenty of stunning combination planters and baskets. Vegetable three day Mother’s Day Party! gardeners will love our healthy Amish-grown local vegetable plants. Ken’s Unique Birdhouses will be back with their “found item” handmade creations.

Our party starts Friday morning May 6th, 8AM to 6PM all three days including Mother’s Day Sunday, RAIN OR SHINE. If you’re new to GoodSeed Nursery, it can be the start of a wonderful family Mother’s Day tradition for you and your family. Otherwise welcome back, and bring a friend!

Estel Newberry will be serving breakfast sandwiches and mouthwatering BBQ meat dishes all weekend!

Ken Wagner’s whimsical birdhouses are made from found objects...affordable, too.

Growing With Us

Page 5

Meet Jenny on June 4th Jenny Peterson’s Pinterest page says “I'm a garden designer, writer, author and speaker. I also love cooking, yoga, knitting and cocktails, and not necessarily in that order.” We would put “Garden lover” first on this list. Jenny Peterson and her team have been creating cool gardens in the Austin area since 2001. From elegant courtyards to funky meditation spaces, Jenny’s gardens are diverse. She listens to her clients and brings out their style and taste so their landscape always reflects the personality of the owner.

Trained as a Master Gardener, Jenny brings a deep understanding of the ecosystems that promote a vibrant garden: healthy soil, integrated pest management, appropriate plant choices and organic methods. She is committed to using primarily native and adapted plants to conserve water and reflect the landscape where she lives.

Jenny’s new book, “The Cancer Survivor’s Garden Companion: Cultivating Hope, Healing & Joy in the Ground Beneath Your Feet” was published in January 2016. “As a result of my own cancer diagnosis, treatment and continued recovery, I hope this book helps others facing similar diagnoses and challenges to use their gardens and the natural world for healing and hope” is her goal.

In addition to her design service, Jenny offers her gardening ideas on Craftsy and Pinterest. Her book “Indoor Plant Decor: The Design Stylebook for Houseplants” (with co-author Kylee Baumle) was named to Amazon’s Best 2013 in Gardening and Floral Design. We are honored to have Jenny as our keynote speaker at this years Garden Expo, and we hope you will find the time to meet her on June 4th.

Garden Expo (continued from Page 1) samples, plus prizes you’ll have a chance to win. Anyone bringing an empty bucket can get a free sample of GoodSeed Garden Mix, our revolutionary bulk soil for raised beds.

It would be a pleasure to see you on June 4th.

Whether you spend the day with us or just stop in for a few hours; we promise you’ll learn a lot and have a Master Gardener Pam Bennett speaks good time! at last year’s GoodSeed Garden Expo

NEW! Easy-to-use organic liquid plant foods from Espoma are a terrific natural, organic alternative to Miracle-Gro, and will never burn your plants! A unique mixing cap measures precisely for you.

Growing With Us

Page 6

Tree Planting 101

“The best time to plant a tree is ten years ago. The next best time is today…”

Handsome, nicely shaped trees don’t usually happen by chance. It helps to know some tree basics. You can avoid the pitfalls, save time and money, and enjoy a healthy tree for years to come. Here’s an overview that should help you get the best outcome.

Picking the Right Tree The first question to ask yourself is “what is this tree for; why am I planting it?” Trees can be for shade, privacy, windbreak, or simply for decoration. There are trade-offs between trees so you have to know which purpose is most important to you.

Next, figure out how tall and wide the tree can be when it’s fully grown. Do you have enough space for a big tree without overhanging your house, interfering with electric wires, or overcrowding other plants you already have? Imagine a big circle in your yard where you have room, with the tree at the center of the circle. Measure the distance across the circle. Now you have important information and can limit your choices to trees that will fit the space. Never plan on “trimming” or keeping trees smaller than God intended them to grow! There are plenty of trees that will fit the space you have when they are full grown.

Look at the growing conditions. Your tree can’t move if it doesn’t like the location. You need to know whether the site is wet or dry, sheltered or exposed, and how good a soil you have. Some trees are more forgiving than others about drainage and soil conditions.

You’ll be surprised how many choices there are if you talk to a knowledgeable nurseryman. Taking advantage of a nurseryman’s experience with real-life situations will save you money, time and sweat. Once you know the size tree and growing conditions, a we can help you with the fun choices such as leaf and bloom color, shape, fall foliage color and so forth. A good way to think about it is that you are a “foster parent” and you’ll learn to love any tree you select, but you want to know that you can provide a good home.

Planting Trees Professionally Tree planting holes should be at least twice as wide as the root ball, but no deeper. Digging too deep a hole can lead to problems, and it’s unnecessary work. Measure the height of the root ball or container from the ground to the base of the trunk (or top of the pot soil). That’s how deep your hole should be. The wider the area of loosened soil around your tree, the faster the roots can quickly spread. This helps the tree take up food and water and anchors it against the wind. Dig a hole wide enough to walk around the tree in the hole.

Mixing tree fertilizer with the soil when planting is magic. The roots will find it gradually as they grow, and growing new roots is the most important thing at first. An easy way to do this is simply spread fertilizer and peat moss on the ground before you dig. As you dig it will be thoroughly mixed, and the peat moss makes digging much easier.

Not just any fertilizer will do. Miracle-Gro and 10-10-10 are much too high in nitrogen, and will burn the roots and cause suckering. We use Espoma Tree Tone, which has slow-release nitrogen and trace minerals. It also contains soil microbes (micorrizae), which restore tired soils and aid in digesting plant food. This helps the tree build a strong root

Growing With Us

Page 7

system and trunk before it grows more branches, making it better able to survive drought.

Plants breathe through their roots, so it’s very important to not cover the original pot soil or the top of the root ball. The area where the trunk meets the soil is called the “root collar” or “root flare”, and covering this with dirt or mulch causes problems. A common cause of tree death is planting trees too deep or covering the roots with soil so they can’t breathe. Some people do this to keep the tree from blowing over. A better way to keep trees straight is proper staking (see illustration). Heaping mulch around the tree trunk can cause the bark to rot and attract harmful insects; you should always be able to see the root flare.

Fill in around the tree a few inches at a time, tamping carefully to prevent settling or air pockets that will dry out the tree. Make a small dike around the tree to hold water long enough to soak in around the roots, so in case there’s dry weather you can add five or ten gallons once a week.

Pruning Young Trees Timely pruning prevents dangerous tree problems by encouraging trees to grow straight, strong and healthy. Wind and ice loads can snap limbs and break trees in half. Often this damage is preventable. Take out limbs that are rubbing or interfering with each other, cut off the lower limbs if they interfere with walking underneath, and get rid of crotches. Cut off water sprouts or suckers (the long straight shoots that stick up or grow from the lower trunk).

This diagram shows how to cut limbs off without tearing or splitting the sensitive bark. Make a small cut underneath (1), then cut off most of the branch (2), then make the final clean cut just above the branch collar (3).

Maintenance Tips The most common cause of death for newly planted trees is over-watering. Daily watering of trees does more harm than good. Trees prefer to dry out somewhat between waterings. Our soil here in southern Ohio tends to be heavy clay, so the planting hole often collects water and drowns the tree. Weekly deep root soaking is much better than watering every day. Keep a schedule of weekly watering regardless of rain. Rainfall won’t provide a deep-root soaking for newly planted trees.

Making a big mulch circle around the tree keeps grass from competing with the tree for water and food. It also prevents damage from lawn mowing, a cause of many tree problems, and helps keep the root zone cool and moist.

The mulch should be at least three inches thick except right over the root ball. Pine bark mulch is best for most trees. Mulch circles around trees can double the speed of growth, increase fruit yield and flowering, and help ward off disease.

Remember to feed your tree each year, during winter or late spring. If you don’t, your tree will rapidly exhaust the nourishment in the soil and growth will slow dramatically. The roots spread as far as the branches, so scatter Tree Tone under the tree out to the drip line unless there’s lawn grass there.

Planting trees is your gift to future generations, as well as giving you pleasure here and now. We are happy to help you purchase, plant, and care for beautiful trees. Just ask us!

Our trees are individually hand-picked for quality!

9736 Tri-County Highway Winchester, Ohio 45697 937-695-0350 www.goodseedfarm.com

PRSTD STD US POSTAGE PAID DAYTON OH PERMIT 41

MOTHER’S DAY PARTY!

CALENDAR

GARDEN CENTER & LANDSCAPING

GoodSeed Nursery

It’s time for our 18th annual Country Garden Mothers Day Party. After eighteen years it’s an annual ritual, with a FREE gift plant for every mom. This year it’s a Weeks Roses “Watercolors Home Run rose! There’s one for you. Our party starts Friday morning May 8th, 8AM to 6 PM all three days.

So, load your mothers and daughters, grandmothers and grandkids, mothers-in-law and mothers-to-be, into your car and head for GoodSeed Nursery sometime between Friday morning and Mother’s Day Sunday. We’ll miss you if you don’t come!

PLAN TO VISIT GOODSEED FARM OFTEN THIS SPRING! Mark your calendar so you can enjoy our special events, take advantage of special savings, bring your family or friends for special times!

April 1-June 30 Spring Hours: Monday-Friday 7AM-7PM, Saturday 8AM-6PM, Sunday 11AM-5PM May 6-7-8 Country Garden Mother’s Day Party! FREE “Watercolor Home Run” rose plant for every mother. Specials, food and fun 8AM-6PM Friday, Saturday, and Mother’s Day Sunday June 4 GoodSeed Garden Expo! Spend the day with experts on gardening, plants, hardscaping and soils! Meet master gardeners, plant experts, representatives from premier nurseries and garden supply manufacturers. Seminars, workshops, exhibits, door prizes, specials, FREE samples. An indoor-outdoor event tailored for home landscapers, vegetable gardeners, lovers of plants & flowers. Rain or shine! Delicious food by Big “E” BBQ and ‘Buckeye Confections”. 9AM-6PM Rain or shine!

July 1-October 31 Summer-Fall Hours: Monday-Saturday 8AM-6PM, Sunday Noon-5PM. Deliveries by appointment.

August 6 Mum Season Begins! Gorgeous mums, perennial asters, fall décor, Amishgrown pumpkins.

October 15-16 Clearance Sale! Everything discounted 50% or more! Come early for the best selection. (Bulk items and RR ties not included).

October 17-31 Fall Hours: Open Tuesday-Saturday 10-5, Sunday Noon-5, Closed Monday.

October 31 CLOSED FOR THE SEASON! Bulk Mulch, Soil & Stone Delivery, Landscaping still available by calling 937-695-0350